Game Title: さよならを教えて 〜comment te dire adieu〜

 (‘How to Say Goodbye to You’)

Platform: PC

Genre: Visual Novel

Release Date: 2001.03.02

Developer: CRAFTWORK

Publisher: CRAFTWORK

Game Writer/Creative Director/Narrative Designer: 

石埜三千穂 / 长冈建蔵 / 长縄

“Teach me goodbye: how to say goodbye to you” is a Visual Novel developed and published by Craftwork on 2 February 2001. Being the classic of the so-called denpa subgenre, it has never had any type of release in the West.

Overview

The main character is a trainee teacher whose internship is not going very well and is often chastised by his supervisor. The only person he can comfortably talk to is the young lady in the health room. One day, he has a dream about an angel being devoured by a monster, and just as he is talking to the health doctor afterwards, a girl who looks exactly like the angel in the dream suddenly enters. After their fate-like encounter, he thinks that the girl is a “divine” being and becomes attached to her.  He then met several different girls. But in the conversation with other girls, the main character gradually develops an unknown desire to kill. However, no matter how he kills these girls, they will return to the main character intact……

In fact, he is not a trainee teacher, but a psychopath who has been frustrated since childhood. The “trainee supervisor” is his sister, and the “female doctor” is his primary care physician. The girls, too, are just his delusions of grandeur – ex-patients, crows, cats, mannequins and human specimens, respectively.

Characters

• 人見  広介 (Hirosuke Hitomi)

The main character of this work is a patient suffering from schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and other severe mental illnesses. He imagines himself as a school trainee teacher and turns the misfortunes he suffered in his childhood into a part of his delusion. For example, he projected the kitten he abused at a very young age on the hospital cat, which turned into his little sister whom he had not seen for a long time; he was once forced to leave the archery department and give up his dream, so he took the broken doll in the junkyard as his student in the department, and so on.

At the same time, in order to make up for his delusional settings, he considers his sister, who comes to visit him every day, as a supervisor for a routine checkup, and his attending doctor as an ordinary health teacher. While advancing the relationship with the imaginary girl, Hitomi’s condition becomes more and more serious, while some morbid thoughts gradually deepen. After one imaginary abusive act after another, his psychological state collapses and eventually reinvents a new identity image for himself. And after this, it seems that everything returns to the usual way, and Hitomi begins a new cycle of torture.

• 巣鴨  睦月 (Mutsuki Sugamo)

Mutsuki is a girl with the face of an angel who suffers from depression. During her stay in hospital, she maintained a harmonious relationship with Hitomi. She tried to hang herself from a tree, but was saved by Hitomi. She left early after she was cured and thus felt guilty about Hitomi.

In our main character’s dream, Mutsuki is infested with demons. However, in reality, Hitomi believes that he holds improper thoughts of love for Mutsuki, so the demon is actually the embodiment of Hitomi’s consciousness, and the demon’s tentacles are a symbol of the self-hanging rope.

As Mutsuki is the only real girl in Hitomi’s delusion, Mutsuki herself is also treated as the only hope to cure Hitomi’s mental illness. But unfortunately, Hitomi’s closed loop of thought does not bring reality, but another fictional world of lies.

• 高田  望美 (Nozomi Takada)

A raven. In Hitomi’s settings, this is a girl who will only ever appear on the rooftop at sunset, always looking into the distance and thinking about the existential nature of freedom. She seems cheerful, but has long suffered the humiliation of her father and always holds suicidal thoughts. In Hitomi’s point of view, she always disappears without saying a few words; in the real world, as a bird, she flies away. 

This character symbolizes the main character’s junior high school years, the moment when Hitomi intends to fight against his family to make a different choice.

• 上野  こより (Koyori Ueno)

A shabby mannequin, seen by Hitomi as a student of the archery department. She once has been harassed by demented men in the settings. The speed of speaking and thinking is very slow, which makes her look very dull, but can always hit the heart of Hitomi toughly. So every time she talks to Hitomi, she will be subject to great destruction from our main character, like the destruction of limbs. 

This role is a reflection of Hitomi’s heart, and is the part of his cowardice that he is most reluctant to face. Externally, the sluggish actions are very similar to some patients; internally, Hitomi once did not give a helping hand to a girl who was harassed in reality, and therefore felt immense remorse. 

At the same time, the way Hitomi treats Koyori is also a reflection of the brutal inner behavior, which is typical of bipolar one disorder. However, after Hitomi’s violence, Koyori will magically appear in front of him, holding a bow, arrow towards Hitomi. This represents Hitomi’s heart actually having some kind of guilt for his cruel behavior.

• 田町 まひる (Mahiru Tamachi)

A kitten in the hospital. In Hitomi’s vision, she is the cute sister with two ponytail braids. She tells Hitomi about the seven uncanny things of the school: the angel in the tree, the crow on the rooftop, the cat on the playground, the mannequin in the archery department, the brain specimen in the library, the shadow in the office and the model in the health room. They correspond to all the important characters in the game respectively.

Mahiru is a figurative representation of Hitomi’s childhood memories, a projection of the kitten that was once abused to death by Hitomi. On the way to contact with Mahiru, the bad things that the main character once did were also restored one by one, ending with Mahiru’s death.

Mahiru is the embodiment of the main character’s own self.

• 目黒  御幸(Miyuki Meguro)

Brain specimen, seen by Hitomi as a sensual girl wearing black-framed glasses. She taught Hitomi lots of strange knowledge, such as black magic.

• 大森  となえ (Tonae Omori)

Hitomi’s primary care doctor, plays as the school’s health teacher. She tries to get Hitomi to wake up by all means.

• 高島  瀬美奈 (Semina Takashima)

Hitomi’s sister in the real world, who does not have a good relationship with Hitomi, but is very concerned about her younger brother and comes to visit him every day pretending to be his superior.

Breakdown

As a game made and released in 2001, its theme can be described as reaching an over-the-top height. The fictional delusion, connected with the broken reality, constitutes the main character’s disorienting illusion; with flashback memories of the past, the boredom and disbelief of the present, and the fearful confusion of the future constitute the entire emotional experience.

The beginning of this work is the dream of the main character, Hitomi, in which unexplained innocence and evil are intertwined, creating a good atmosphere for the whole work. Then comes up the common plot of meeting with the beautiful girls. Seemingly clichéd (/kliːˈʃeɪd/), the player is mistaken to think that the control is a normal teacher trainee. However, the dialogue is gradually out of the player’s comprehension, and the characters’ behavior is frightening. Hitomi’s violence cannot even be stopped by the player, and the dreams become more and more bizarre. After playing the first ending, most players should understand that all this is just Hitomi’s delusion. All of it, all of it is not true.

And then, players full of fighting spirit will inevitably want to get a happy ending, they will try a new line after a new line. However, no matter which line they choose, no matter which beauty they raid, the action just makes their shadow fade a little faster. In the Mutsuki line which players most thought would work, Hitomi’s final ending is just the start of a new cycle. Eventually the player will understand that nothing can be changed, pain and suffering will forever block the character.

This galgame breaks the conventional perception of romance games and gives the player a clear way to experience the painful journey of the patient. The game is full of metaphors, which allows the player to carefully consider the process of playing and makes the game not too flat or one-sided.

Strongest Element

In my opinion, the best portrayal of the entire game is the character of Koyori. Among all the characters, the conflict in Koyori is the most harmonious and unified, and the most thought-provoking.

Koyori’s dullness, but not just superficial stupidity, represents both the psychopath’s indifference to the outside world and the calmness of knowing everything. (And it is this calmness that evokes the protagonist’s boundless anger.)

After we feel Koyori’s slowness, the author surprisingly places a brave image of Koyori, who intends to use a bow and arrow to shoot Hitomi. The contrast is really stunning, and though Koyori is a completely fictional non-human creature, such versatility can still be deeply shocking.

Koyori’s versatility is also the versatility of Hitomi. The brutal side of Hitomi is evident when Koyori is abused: Hitomi will never let go of the weak Koyori as long as she speaks what he really thinks, and the cowardly side is evident when Koyori mentions that she is being harassed and no one is there to help, and when Koyori picks up a bow and arrow. Hitomi clearly shows his weakness and fear, as well as his regret for mistreating Koyori.

In short, if the other girls show the false hope of the protagonist, Koyori shows the most real and gory side.

Unsuccessful Element

The second half of the game to the eve of the end is slightly weak. 

At the end of one day’s episode, Hitomi suddenly storms off without warning and vows to save the girl he loves. After this the plot wraps up quickly, leaving people a bit overwhelmed. 

In my opinion, though Hitomi’s behavior is unpredictable, as a work of literature, we should still provide some minor padding to help players have a better and more immersive experience. Even some abstract and incomprehensible ways are much better than having no clues at all. The main theme of the game itself is difficult for most players to understand, if not in the big twist to make clear hints, even understanding the general direction of the plot itself is a problem.

Highlight

At the end, when Hitomi unusually calmly said to his attending doctor, this is a hospital, my heart went wild with joy. I really thought Hitomi had been released from this unresolved cycle of pain. The doctor was also frozen, not expecting the treatment to suddenly work one day. 

But just as the joy was there, Hitomi’s next words knocked everyone’s heart into the ice: “Go on shift instead.” When the doctor didn’t respond, Hitomi added, “The diagnosis is about to begin, and I’m a trainee doctor. It turned out that Hitomi was just starting a new round of delusions of grandeur, and all our hopes are just wishful thinking. Hitomi can’t be saved in this story. Such a huge difference in a short period of time makes people feel indescribable.The girls also returned and called out senpai (which can both be called doctors and teachers) in unison, which was shivering and sad.

Critical Reception

1. The writing is rough, the early plot is too long and not enough to attract people, and it’s easy to make no understanding of the players quickly give up.

2. The plot of the later period is impetuous and unpredictable, making it difficult to understand what is going on. (Both from Zhihu, id = 问题达人)

Lessons

• This work limits the time, place, characters, to a very narrow range. I used to think it must be a grand background, gorgeous narrative to make the story extremely exciting. However, the truth is indeed, if your portrayal is colorful enough, all the restrictions are actually not restrictions, but rather strengthen the overall structure, and facilitate the advancement of the theme plot.

• When writing the plot, it is vital to take care that the overall proportion is not out of balance. At the very beginning of the creation, more work should be spent on the formulation of the outline, while in the follow-up it is important not to allocate the length too arbitrarily. A tiger’s head and a snake’s tail will only result in work with regrets.

• While creating this story, the author personally interviewed patients to gain a deeper understanding. In the process of creation, we should not be detached from reality, and the parts that are not clear should be examined and adapted carefully.

Summation

I love all the games which use careful internal portrayals and the use of cleverly constructed descriptions to immerse players. In my past communication with my mother, there is always something that is incomprehensible to each other. Usually I will think carefully about what is within her perception and use that item as an analogy to make her understand. The way this game was portrayed resonated deeply with me, and I then developed a strong fondness for it and a desire to analyze it carefully.